Information and insight from the A&M Webmasters

As a word of forewarning, with the upcoming move to the new www.tamu.edu machine, all support for and access to the mailto.pl script currently installed will be eliminated. Right now it is disabled from off-campus use and is generally deemed officially unsupported and “use at your own discretion,” but we will not be moving it to the new server and will not make it available through other channels. We encourage anyone still using it on their pages to find a different (and better) solution. This script is quite old and there are many better alternatives available for download on the internet.

2 Comments to Upcoming Retirement of Service

While I understand your explanation and need, this was a horrible and unthoughtful decision that has affected my research program and possible many others. I, and I believe others, do not check this Aggie Webmasters site. Next time, please figure out a way to inform the users about your decisions. Your decisions may affect us in ways you cannot imagine and repair.

I’m sorry if this decision has impacted your work. I realize I didn’t provide specific details in the announcement, but the decision wasn’t one of convenience but one of securing the http://www.tamu.edu webserver, which is the public face of the university. This script has been actively exploited in the past, more than once, which is why it was already disabled from off campus. With the planned configuration of the new hardware we, in conjunction with CIS system administrators, agreed that this vulnerability should be removed altogether. I agree that we could have done a better job of letting users know; we will try to make sure this type of issue doesn’t arise again.